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California Legislators Lash Out at California Governor

"We won't balance the budget on the backs of the Indians in this state," Assemblywoman Jenny Oropeza, D-Long Beach, told delegates to the 8th annual Western Indian Gaming Conference being held at the Pechanga Resort & Casino.

The chairwoman of the assembly's budget committee said tribal government casinos are not only generating economic development on Indian lands, but creating jobs and wealth in the state and surrounding communities. Tribal governments employ about 40,000 workers, most of them non-Indians, and purchase about $4.4 billion in goods and services.

"You are contributing to (California's) economy as well as providing for your people," Oropeza told attendees at the conference and trade show. "You need to say that. You need to publicize that. You are already contributing to this state."

Assemblyman Jerome Horton, (D-Los Angeles) said without tribal government economies the state deficit would be even larger, perhaps as much as $55 billion.

"Tribes are creating jobs," Horton said. "Tribes are creating economic development. Tribes are creating growth."

Assemblyman Ed Chavez, D-La Puente, said he supports efforts by some tribes to do away with a clause in the existing tribal-state compacts that limits each tribe to no more than 2,000 slot machines. "I believe (doing away with the cap) would stimulate the economic and create jobs," Chavez said. It would also generate capital tribes would use to diversity their economies.

Gaming industry consultant Michael Lombardi agreed with industry analysts who predict only about a dozen tribal government casinos are located in areas of the state that would support a market for more than 2,000 machines. But he disagreed with Wall Street analysts who estimate that tribal casinos in California are generating $5 billion to $6 billion a year. "It's more like $2.6 billion to $2.7 billion," he said.

Tribal-state compacts agreed to by the state and 61 tribal governments are subject to possible renegotiations this year.

Bill Leonard, Member of the California Board of Equalization said, "Tribes should contest the Governor's $1.5 billion assessment."

State Controller Steve Wesley, another speaker at the conference, also praised tribal leaders in California and throughout the country who have used gaming revenues to strengthen tribal governments and their economies.

"What you have done is extraordinary," Wesley said. "You have created hope for the next generation of Native Americans."

The conference and trade show, sponsored by the California Nations Indian Gaming Association, ends Thursday with several seminars and a speech by Philip Hogen, chairman of the National Indian Gaming Commission, the federal agency that regulates tribal casinos

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